by George Orwell

Eric Arthur Blair was bom in Motihari, India, on June 25, 1903, to English parents. He adopted the pseudonym George Orwell in 1933 when he published his first book, Down and Out in Paris and London. A decade later, in 1943, the politically minded Orwell, distressed by the British support enjoyed by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, began writing Animal Farm to illustrate the way in which revolutions can turn into tyrannies.

Events in History at the Time of the Novel

The seeds of revolution in Russia. During the 1880s czarist-ruled Russia with its vast imperial holdings increased its participation in the world economic community while it underwent a process of industrialization. Although still an essentially agrarian nation (peasants constituted 80 percent of the population), Russia saw during this time a drastic increase in both the business and the wage-earning classes-or, in socialist terminology, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Much of...